Instantly Increase Engagement for Your E Commerce Business in Malaysia

For most small business owners it is easy to get caught up in the jargons of your business and forget the importance of making connections with your customers.

There is a saying that customers buy with their heart and not with their brains.

As most email marketers would say that the success of any email marketing campaigns is dependent on the ability for you to deeply forge a relationship with your subscriber.

And the primary requirement for this is to engage your prospects at every touch point of your email marketing campaign.

The best way of engaging your prospects and customers is to send triggered emails that show how much you care for them.

A key differentiation for your small business in Malaysia, no matter how saturated the market is by standing out from the rest through the showing of some emphaty.

And when it comes to different types of triggered emails and their effectiveness in driving engagement, “Thank You” emails take the top slot hands down!

When Should you send one?

Thank you emails open up multiple avenues to engage with your prospects and customers. You can send them at various stages.

Here are 3 stages at which you should send a thank you email in order to get the maximum benefit:

1. After Subscription

The one stage at which you should not miss sending a thank you email is when someone subscribes to your emails.

Use your thank you email in such a manner that your new subscriber feels happy about joining your list. Start by thanking them for their interest in your products/services and ask them to get in touch with you if they have any queries regarding your business. Keep the email causal and make them feel that you are genuinely excited by their subscription.

The best way to avoid being to pushy is to include a brief intro about your business, products, and services and also mention what makes you stand apart from your peers.

2. After Purchase

After making a purchase from your site, your customers will definitely wait for a receipt against the purchase made, and they will surely open it to check as soon as they receive it. This gives you a great opportunity which you must leverage by combining the order receipt with a thank you note.

Doing this will make them feel that you value them highly, thus building loyalty towards your brand.

You can also add tips and FAQ section in the email to make it more engaging, just like what Classic Specs, an online eye-wear provider, has done in their thank you email:

3. Few Days after Order Delivery

Send a thank you email to your customer about a week after they receive the delivery of their order. In this email, thank the customer again for making the purchase and ask them whether they are happy with their new products.

Besides this, add customer support information as a means of info for them to contact you.

The thank you email that you send at this stage of the customer lifecycle should be used to cross sell and upsell.

Find out more about how your small business can send professional business emails with Everworks email hosting here.

Read More

5 Ways to Boost Your Christmas Email Campaigns

Hey there small businesses! Make sure you plan a for this, because planning a great Christmas email campaign is crucial to your shop’s holiday success.

There’s the hype and although social media marketing might seem like the trendy thing to do at the moment (and it is worth investing in if you do it right), email marketing campaigns are inexpensive and can actually be very effective

In this post we’ll look at some strategies on the how-tos for running a successful Christmas email campaign.

1. Timing

Timing is important, as with most things. Timing is always a tricky thing in life, isn’t it?

Email marketing is no exception too, especially when it comes to Christmas sales.

With businesses trying to stay one step ahead of the competition during the holiday season, it seems that Black Friday will be a thing of the past soon (or at least not as relevant as in previous years).

This is where you have to be careful. If you’re a B2B business, it might very well make sense to begin your marketing campaigns in early October, as your consumers will need to prepare their own campaigns for the end users. However, if you’re a B2C company and you start sending your Christmas emails out too early, you run the risk of Christmas banner blindness. Your messages might get ignored or, even worse, you might irritate your customers.

Here’s a schedule that we recommend to prepare. It’s a sequence of emails that you should send and your workflow should look like this:

Warm up: inform your audience of the upcoming sale and what they can expect
Reminder: let them know that the sale is beginning very soon
Wake up: remind them that the sale has begun
Follow up: let them know any relevant information for a post-Christmas sale, etc.q
Of course, this isn’t set in stone and it all depends on your offers and your strategy. For example, you might have a “last-minute” sales email in this workflow to advertise your printable gift cards.
All in all, remember, it’s never too early to start planning your Christmas campaigns, but it can be too early to start sending them out.

2. Bring to the front important information.

A lot of companies are going to be holding Christmas sales, so you’re going to do your best to differentiate your offer. The last thing you want is for your customers to miss the benefits of buying from you. If you have a gift guide section on your website, make sure they know. I

3. Design

With all the deals you’ll be offering, you might forget that it is Christmas – and what’s Christmas without decorations? Your emails should reflect this as well. You have a lot different routes to choose from here:  the clean, white Christmas look or the colorful lights.

For B2B companies, perhaps you’ll want to go with a clean, white Christmas look, or include a Christmas greeting in the footer of your email.

A bonus tip for B2B companies, could be to include a Christmas signature.

4. Texts

Again, don’t forget that it’s Christmas time! Sure, it can be a bit stressful at times at home and at work (that might be the understatement of the year), but it’s supposed to be fun, too! “Fun” is the feeling that the email should give your readers.

Make sure you reach deep down inside and get that inner “soul” to make your best Christmas puns. Don’t be afraid to dabble in some cheesy word-play either.

5. Have the correct landing page

It’s hard enough getting people to open your email. The next goal is for them to click on button. In this day and age, two-clicks really is asking a lot from people.

However, if you’ve managed to grab their attention with your email, that means you’re doing something right! The last thing you want to do is guide them to a page that doesn’t show them the information they want to see.

If these potential customers have given you their attention, make sure you hold their attention by guiding them to a landing page that matches your email in style and content. 

The journey this customer takes after that first click should be completely smooth and cause no confusion. For example, if you’ve caught their attention by showcasing your gift guide, then the landing page should take them directly there, not to the homepage.

Don’t waste this opportunity!

Discover how you can send emails that get through with Everworks’s business email hosting here.

Read More

Tips on How To Not Make the Mistake of Choosing the Wrong Email Service Provider

Email marketing is the bread and butter for most marketers as it draws the most ROI compared to other marketing channels.

Every brand is now implementing inbound methodology, marketers are choosing email marketing as the best way to build trust and increase sales.

The idea is to capture a prospect’s brief approach to you with a problem and subscribes to your emails with a hope to be educated and finding a solution to his problems.

During this critical moment, your catch to these prospects is that they will lose out on a valuable aspect of information that wouldn’t be otherwise available unless they subscribe to your email.

There is a large chance that this isn’t even presented to your prospects when they need it most.

And this fault is likely to be due to your Email Service Provider ("ESP"), as your message would have ended in spam.

If you wondering what an ESP is or if you are facing troubles with your current one, this article is for you.

The role of the Email Service Provider ("ESP")

To send emails to a customer you need an ESP. They help you to deliver your email to your customers in bulk. Yes there is the ever present popular options such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and more, but these are only good for sending individual cold emails to individuals.

ESPs have other features built into them, which make them the first choice for any email marketer such as:

1. Database and App API integration
2. Email list segmentation and management tools
3. Automated email sending

How to choose an ESP

Setting up an ESP from scratch requires time and money, so the best option is to choose one that already has a set amount of features and service offerings that fit your needs:

1. Costing: 

In the realm of ESPs, there is one for every type of budget. There are free-to-use ESPs like Mailchimp who offer user-friendly email editor, premium looking email template library, email automation workflows and email campaign analytics for almost nothing provided that you send out less than 2,000 emails monthly. While it seems like a sweet deal, the email template is not yours and the footer will carry Mailchimp banner. Plus, you can send only 10 campaigns every month. This is an excellent option for someone who has just started out or on a tight budget.

2. Deliverability Standards: 

Any emails you send are scanned by an Internet Service Provider at the user-end before being delivered. If the IP that you send your emails is blacklisted, the ISP filter will not allow your emails to pass through. Since you shall be using an ESP to send your emails, you need to ensure that they provide you with good deliverability. Enquire about the different kinds of reputation support such as white listing.

3. API integration support: 

Sending emails is a process that is constantly improved upon based on previous campaign performances (this is dependant on whether you really need this or not)

4. Scalability: 

Since you have a mailing list of < 2,000 subscribers, you decide to choose the free model of the ESP. Will your ESP have the capability to send emails when your mailing list explodes to >20,000 subscribers? Does it support adding more users in your plan?

5. Customer Support: 

Imagine you scheduled an email to be sent early morning but owing to ESP server downtime, the campaign could not be delivered. Does your email service provider cater to customer support at odd hours?

6. Ease-to-use: 

Are the specified features easy to use? Is the FAQ section easily accessible? How quickly does customer support respond? Do you require any technical knowledge to operate the platform?

Tips to keep in mind:

1. Metrics you measure: 

Email campaign metrics such as open rates, click rates, unsubscribes are provided by all ESPs, but you need to identify other metrics that you wish to measure such as heatmap, optimum open rate, last email opened etc.

2. Plans for improving interactivity: 

You need to check whether you plan to send emails with innovations to boost user engagement. This is important since most ESPs don’t support CSS interactivity.

-----

Although choosing or switching ESPs is like making a life-long commitment. You may choose to change. BUT beware as it would mean a waste of resources.

You can learn more about our email services here.

Read More

Increase your MAIL Server Performance Process

Dear All Valued Customers, 

In order to better serve you and improve our MAIL Servers' performance processes, we take account security very seriously. There are a number of things you can do to help increase our servers' performance. To ensure that your important email accounts remain safe and to prevent email accounts getting hacked, we strongly recommend following these steps regularly:

To keep your account safe, here are a few tips on how to create a strong password:

1. Use a unique password for each of your importants accounts

Use a different password for each of your important accounts, like your email and online banking accounts. Re-using passwords is risky. If someone figures out your password for one account, that person could potentially gain access to your email, address, and even your money.

2. Change your password often

If someone has figured out your password, they might be accessing your account without you knowing. Regularly changing your password helps limit this type of unauthorized access.

3. Use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols in your password

Using numbers, symbols and mix of upper and lower case letters in your password makes it harder for someone to guess your password. For example, an eight-character password with numbers, symbols and mixed-case letters is harder to guess because it has 30,000 times as many possible combinations than an eight-character password with only lower case letters.

4. Don't use personal information or common words as a password

Create a unique password that's unrelated to your personal information and use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. For example, you can select a random word or phrase and insert letters and numbers into the beginning, middle, and end to make it extra difficult to guess (such as "sPo0kyh@ll0w3En"). Don’t use simple words or phrases like "password" or "letmein," keyboard patterns such as "qwerty" or "qazwsx," or sequential patterns such as "abcd1234" which make your password easier to guess.

For Technical Enquiries, kindly contact our Critical Velocity Support Team at our :-

Office: +603-7806-3550

E-mail: cvs@everworks.com

Hope you have a good hosting with EVERWORKS Solutions.

photo of girl  Some rights reserved by Baba G

Read More

Email Migration Deployment

Recently I interviewed an EVERWORKS expert, Wong, on how to move a domain from one old SmarterMail Server to another New SmarterMail Server.

Move a Domain from one old SmarterMail Server to Another New SmarterMail Server

An email migration is the process of moving files of an email service for the domain from one old one to another. A migration occurs due to reasons such as insufficient space, required additional features, or needed email server performance enhancement.

Recently EVERWORKS performed an Email Migration to upgrade its internal email service for its own operational use. In this migration, there are tips that hopefully will help you to better prepare for a smooth migration. (Perform migration easily with EVERWORKS Migration Service).

Here are steps to Migrate a Domain from one old SmarterMail Server to another New SmarterMail Server:

Tip 1: Schedule a Migration

It is best to schedule migration during a period that has the least amount of activity, to ensure that little is hindered and there is sufficient time to perform such a migration.

Tip 2: Notify all Stakeholders

Take importance to the notification to everyone (employees, suppliers, customers, vendors, etc) that there will be an EMAIL SERVER PLANNED MAINTENANCE, including the anticipated period the email service will be unavailable, specifically what would be affected, and when to expect service to resume as normal. Normally notifications are sent out through Email, but depending on company policy, methods for formal notifications may vary. 

Tip 3: Set a cutoff date for Email Housekeeping

Set a deadline for email housekeeping for all stakeholders involved or affected. A good practice would be a minimum of 7 business days before migration occurs.

Tip 4: Backup

Ensure that adequate backups have been put in place before the migration is underway. Also include domain backups.

Important Steps

Important Note: Ensure that SmarterMail is stopped on both servers before proceeding.

Make a back up copy of the DomainList.xml and the domains folder before starting. Locate the domain's folder. By default, this folder can be found at C:\SmarterMail\Domains\[domain-name]

Move this folder from the old server to the new server via FTP.

- File transfer protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from a host to another over a TCP-based network such as the Internet.

Edit the domainList.xml file with Notepad on the old server. By default, this file can be found at C:\Program Files\SmarterMail\Service

Locate this line: 

<Domain name="MyDomain.com" directory="c:\SmarterMail\Domains\MyDomain.com"/>

Cut or copy this line from the file and save the file. Make a backup of the domainList.xml on the new server. Edit the domainList.xml on the new server. Paste the line you cut before into this document, and save.

Start SmarterMail service on both servers.

Modify the email primary MX record to the new IP Address. 

Note: This can take up to 4-12 hours for DNS Propagation through the Internet.

Note: There are cases that there is a need to speed up the DNS Propagation process. You can do this by modifying the default $TTL 14400 with the value (in seconds), such as 300 (5 minutes) to reflect the new IP Address change to retain availability of the email services hosted on the new server, to minimize the downtime of the email service. Also to avoid potential uncommon troubles such as having emails delivered to either servers at random.

For further support please contact +603 7806 3550 or email cvs@everworks.com should you need further assistance regarding this issue.

File Transfer designed by iconoci from the Noun Project

Read More

Difference between POP3 and IMAP

Email is an indispensable modern tool that improves efficiency and flexibility. Your email is stored in a place called a mailbox. Separate users can have their own mailboxes, to receive emails, for example user1@example.com, user2@example.com, etc. (where example.com is your domain). Sometimes you would like a dedicated, or many, employee(s) and a specified mailbox to receive emails.  An alias can be created to accommodate this, for example the alias support@example.com receives emails related to support and those emails are also sent to adam@example.com and betty@example.com. Thus, the email would be in  all three (support@example.com, adam@example.com and betty@example.com) mailboxes.

Mailboxes can be connected either through Post Office Protocol (POP3) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). Both these protocols are used for email retrieval purposes.

POP3 Retrieval Process

POP3

POP3 being the most common in email protocol, where messages are downloaded and stored on your computer. 

IMAP Retrieval Process

IMAP

Whereas, IMAP stores your email folders (inbox, sent items, trash, etc) on the server. Having IMAP allows you to access your email from anywhere. Email stored using IMAP does count towards your disk space quota.

Webmail uses IMAP to connect to the mailbox. IF your email client connects using POP3, you can still use webmail to view new messages in the inbox, but however you won't be able to access email that is stored in your computer. 

If you want to be able to see new messages in the webmail inbox, while also downloading emails to your computer, you can set your email client to leave a copy of your emails on the server for a specified period of time. However when performing this action, be aware that this setting does not offer the same synchronizing benefits as IMAP.

How do I choose between POP3 and IMAP?

POP was designed for for situations when there is only one and only one desktop computer. Normally these messages are stored/downloaded onto your desktop computer and deleted from the mail server. If you choose to work with your POP email on more than one computer, you may have problems with synchronizing. (Mail archive, if you have one, will be kept on your desktop computer.)

IMAP is designed for the situation where you need to work with your email from multiple computers such as your workstation at work, your personal computer, or/and on a portable laptop. Messages are displayed on your local computer but are kept and stored on the mail server, making accessibility from any location a breeze. You can create subfolders to organize the emails you want to keep, but this will work against your email quota.

Choose IMAP 

1. if you need to access your email, both new and old, from more than one place.
2. use POP, but specify to leave mail in your server.
3. use a synchronizing option

Choose POP

1. if you work with your email from a single location (a single computer)
2. webmail works fine for you if you just want to check email.
3. you regularly backup your email messages, and archive it.

---

EVERWORKS is Malaysia's Leading Colocation Hosting, Server Colocation Hosting Services and Mobile Hosting Provider. EVERWORKS offers unique Web & Email Hosting packages which is low-cost, high availability and high performance. Backed with the assurance of industry ready professionals, unmetered data transfers, unlimited POP3 email accounts, 24/7 phone & email support, and a 30 days money back guarantee.

Find out more by contacting EVERWORKS for more information!

Read More

Troubleshoot Outlook

I personally felt that I should write up a post on troubleshooting Microsoft Outlook when it comes to custom email settings for EVERWORKS Email Hosting Solution. Seeing error codes scare me as much as they scare you. This post is short and sweet with easy to follow guides. It should give you a systematic solution; hopefully getting rid of the pesky error message.

Firstly just to be absolutely sure,

when configuring your custom email settings in Microsoft Outlook you should go through "EVERWORKS Email Hosting - Outlook Help" and filter through the steps just to make sure it is right. Sometimes it could be the minor mistakes that cause a lot of complications. Just run through the steps in the post, and see if the error message still pops up!

IMPORTANT NOTE: TELEKOM MALAYSIA HAS BLOCKED PORT 25, AND PORT 25 MAY BE BLOCKED IN YOUR COUNTRY TOO.

If the problem still persists...

If you have already gone through the point above and still have not resolved the error code here are the last few steps you should follow for EVERWORKS technical support to serve you as efficiently as possible:

Step 1

Screenshot the error. Keep a good documentation of the error that you are facing so that you can have something to show and illustrate better to EVERWORKS technical support.

Step 2

Define clearly what you did. Accurate, step by step documentation helps greatly. 

Step 3

Shoot an email to our technical support (including everything inside Step 1 and Step 2 attached within the email), and they will help you with what ever it is you need. 

cvs@everworks.com

---

Whenever facing a problem don't panic! You always have EVERWORKS trusty support ready to service your needs and solve the problem together with you!

If this post has helped you greatly please share more about your experiences in the comments section below!

Read More

Set up EVERWORKS Email Hosting - Outlook Help

I have been getting responses from some users to questions as to what you should do in the event that you have already signed up for EVERWORKS Web & Email Hosting solution, and ask, "how do I connect it to Microsoft Outlook on my computer for me to receive emails more efficiently?"

Please take note that after signing up for EVERWORKS Web & Email Hosting solution you are allowed to access to the mail server through two (2) options:

1. Webmail
2. Email software - Microsoft Outlook

Introduction

EVERWORKS defines your mail exchanger record (MX record) - read more on MX records here - through your domain name as "mail.[domain].com" / "mail.[domain].com.my (applying to whichever extension your domain uses).

For example: If I have a domain of "www.hosting.com" EVERWORKS would define my MX Record as "mail.hosting.com" likewise if it was ".org" or ".com.my" or ".my" or etc.

Breakdown of Micrsoft Outlook Mail Information

This is a breakdown of the main list of configurations that needs to be configured in either Microsoft Outlook or Express for retrieving emails:

Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server: mail.[domain].com
Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Port: 26
Incoming Mail (POP3) Server: mail.[domain].com
Incoming Mail (POP3) Port: 110
*Please take note :- SMTP Authentication is required for POP3 email access using either Microsoft Outlook or Express.

Where to make your changes

As highlighted above in the breakdown you would need to key in the important particulars for Outgoing and Incoming Mail before you can receive any email in either Microsoft Outlook or Express. It seems like a daunting task at first, but if you go through this image below, you will find it to be rather easy, and not as difficult as you may think.

Add an email account with custom settings or when automatic setup doesn't work

If you are setting up Outlook for the first time or you are adding a new email profile and the setup doesn't finish successfully, because it cannot detect the mail server you typed in, there are some things that you can try to get it to work:

You can wait a little while and try again. Sometimes, the destined mail server might just be having a temporary hiccup or an unstable network connection.
If trying again doesn't work, you might have to use custom settings.

Setting up

1. Click File

2. Click Add Account

3. Click Manual Setup or additional server types > next

Please make sure you know EVERWORKS designated  Incoming POP3 and Outgoing SMTP. (**check the earlier brief on the Breakdown of Microsoft Outlook Mail Information)

POP3 account

1. Click Internet Email, and then click Next

2. Under User Information, do the following:

Type your name in the Your Name box.
Type in your email address inside the Email Address box (**{your given designation}.[domain].com make sure to include '@' symbol; for example: nic@hosting.com)
In the Password and Retype Password boxes, type your password.

Important Note: Passwords are case-sensitive. Make sure the Caps Lock key isn't on when you enter your password.

3. Under Server Information, do the following:

In the Account Type list, choose POP3.
In the Incoming Mail Server box, type the full name provided, example: "mail.[domain].com"
In the Outgoing Mail Server box [SMTP], type the full name provided, example: "mail.[domain].com

4. Under the Logon Information, do the following:

In the User Name box, type your user name.
In the Password box, type your password.
Check Remember Password.

Important Note: If you choose to let Outlook remember your password (meaning you won't have to type your password ever again), anyone that  has access to your computer can read or send mail as you.

5. Your email account will require the following additional settings:

SMTP Authentication click more settings. On the Outgoing tab, check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication. Change the port number to 26.
POP 3 Encryption for POP3 accounts, click More Settings. On the Advanced tab, under Server Port Numbers, under Incoming Server (POP3), check the server requires an encrypted connection (SSL). Change the port number to 110.

Important Note: Outgoing Port 26 and Incoming Port is 110.

6. Click Next

By default, this option verifies your account is working. (If there are any information missing or incorrect, you're prompted to enter or correct it.

7. Click Finish

IMPORTANT NOTE: TELEKOM MALAYSIA HAS BLOCKED PORT 25 FOR SECURITY REASONS, AND PORT 25 MAY BE BLOCKED IN YOUR COUNTRY TOO.

---

If there are any other further queries please feel free to contact EVERWORKS 24hour technical support at cvs@everworks.com

Read More